Decision by Biden comes after Trump warned of enemies list, including people who investigated Capitol attack

Joe Biden has pardoned Dr Anthony Fauci, retired Gen Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, using the extraordinary powers of his office in his final hours to guard against potential “revenge” by the incoming Trump administration.

The decision by Biden comes after Donald Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Trump has selected Cabinet nominees who backed his election lies and who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.

Smell has an outsize effect on our thoughts and moods, so it’s worth paying more attention to it

If you have been on holiday recently, do you think you could recall and describe what the place smelled like? You probably don’t get asked that question very often. And yet, the characteristic smell of a place seems to contain its special essence. Photos can’t truly bring back the feeling of being there, but smell has that power.

Our sense of smell develops before we’re born, and it is strongly linked to brain centres associated with creating new memories and perceiving emotions and bodily sensations. As a result, smells can merge these together, forming vividly personal memories. Most of us have smells that act as a trigger, transporting us to another time and place; for some it is the ocean breeze in summer, for others it might be urban smells of coffee houses, exhaust fumes or a hot pavement on a sunny day. I remember moving to Chicago after completing my PhD in Sweden 15 years ago. In the taxi from the train station, amid the gloomy midwestern winter, I realised the entire city was doused in the most incredible chocolate smell. I opened the window and took a deep sniff. That familiar scent, coming from a chocolate factory on the west side of town, immediately made me feel at ease. I believe Proust was right when he wrote that smells contain “the vast structure of recollection”.

Ripples from Axel Rudakubana’s killing of three girls spread wide and deep, from the personal to the political

“Southport is a quiet, kind place in which nothing ever happens,” said the Rev Thomas Carter, the morning after it happened. “People are struggling to understand it.”

It wasn’t just Southport; the whole country struggled to process the carnage that took place late on a sunny Monday one week into the school holidays.

Publisher was helped by strong digital advertising performance towards end of year, say analysts

• Business live – latest updates

Shares in the owner of the Daily Mirror rose more than a quarter after the publisher said it expects to beat annual profit expectations, after a strong end to the year and the benefit of deep cost cutting in recent years .

Reach, which owns national papers including the Mirror and Express and scores of local titles including the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo, said the profit upgrade was due to a strong final quarter last year.

Washington ceremony expected to take place indoors at from 11.30am (4.30pm GMT)

• Trump inauguration: what to know and how to watch it
• Trump promises ‘historic’ day one with barrage of executive orders

My colleague Joseph Gedeon in Washington DC also had this look at what Trump might have planned for day one:

In the grand theatre of American politics, presidential inaugurations typically follow a familiar script: the oath, the speech, a few carefully chosen executive orders to satisfy campaign promises. Franklin D Roosevelt used his first day to tackle the banking crisis . Barack Obama moved to close Guantánamo Bay (though it remains open). Donald Trump ’s first term began with a single executive order targeting Obamacare . Joe Biden signed 17 executive orders on his first day in 2021.

Renewed program would allow hunters to eliminate up to 80% of the animals on 20,000 acres of state land

Alaska is set to resume the aerial gunning of bears and wolves as a population control measure aimed at boosting caribou and moose herd numbers, even as the state’s own evaluation of the practice cast doubt on its effectiveness.

The renewed program would allow hunters to eliminate up to 80% of the animals on 20,000 acres of state land. Environmental groups opposed to what they label a “barbaric” practice of shooting wildlife from helicopters is more about sport than scientific practice in part because hunters want caribou populations to increase because they are trophy animals.

FRC confirms inquiry into accounting firm’s 2022 audit of Ladbrokes, Coral and Sportingbet owner

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The accounting firm KPMG is under investigation by the sector’s UK regulator over its audit of the 2022 accounts of the gambling company Entain.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said its enforcement division would be examining the conduct of the “big four” accounting firm, without saying what the investigation related to.

Rudakubana, an isolated teenager obsessed with genocide, carried out the worst attack on children in Britain since Dunblane

Axel Rudakubana seemed, on the face of it, an unthreatening figure: a quiet boy from a God-fearing family, slightly built and small for his age. He showed passion for acting – once even playing Doctor Who in a BBC Children in Need advert, wearing spectacles and an oversized trenchcoat – but friends said he lacked the confidence for the big stage.

He was on the books of a talent agency at the age of 11. But by the end of his schooling this summer he was a virtual recluse.

Temperatures will drop by 15-20C with heavy rain and snow predicted in some states

Much of the US is bracing for a severe cold spell this week with temperatures set to plummet. In some places maximum temperatures are expected to drop by 15-20C over just a couple of days in contrast to above average temperatures in parts of the US earlier last week.

The rapid change in conditions is due to winds in the upper atmosphere weakening and meandering. At about six miles above the Earth’s surface there is a strong circulation known as the polar vortex around the north pole, which usually helps to keep cold air trapped there. However, late last week and early this week the circulation has been weakening and meandering, allowing a cold plume of air to be brought in from the north. Temperatures across central and eastern parts of the US are forecast to be 10-15C below average, with New York likely to see temperatures struggling to get out of negative double digits during daytime. As the cold air pushes in from the north, an area of low pressure will develop in the warmer gulf of Mexico, these two air masses will then clash across states bordering the Gulf of Mexico, bringing heavy rain and snow to areas that rarely see any. This cold spell is expected to last until the weekend, when temperatures will slowly start returning to around average.